I 
167 
OPERATIONS FOR AUGUST. 
As this and the succeeding month are well known to be the period in which 
the farmer takes advantage of every line day which occurs for the purpose of 
storing his grain ; and as the sciences of agriculture and horticulture are perfectly 
analogous, and the operations they inculcate differ chiefly in extent ; the attention 
of the gardener will in like manner be now requisite to every plant which may be 
producing seed, and which he may wish to preserve, in order to perpetuate the 
species in a future season by this means. To procure good seed from any plant, it 
is important that each individual seed-pod (excepting of course those which are 
very small and minute) should be plucked from the plant as soon as it is sufficiently 
ripened, and before it has been allowed to burst, drying it carefully on paper, and 
afterwards rubbing out the seed, to be stored in drawers during the winter. This 
process may appear troublesome to some, as we know that most cultivators leave 
the plants which are intended to produce seed in the ground till the greater part of 
it is ripe, and then pull up the whole plant, and suspend it in an airy shed to dry. 
We cannot too severely censure this practice ; for in the first place, the seed which 
ripens first, and which is almost invariably the best, is by this method usually 
scattered in the ground, while the remaining portion is becoming ripe ; and next, 
that which is left being suspended in any place to dry, the ripest and best seeds of 
most kinds fall out and are lost, and nothing remains but the weakest and that 
which is only half ripened, which never produces good plants, and frequently does 
not vegetate at all. These remarks may appear trivial and unimportant, but we 
feel assured that the beauty and interest of the plants in every department of 
floriculture, (at least of that portion of them which is reproduced by seed,) depend 
in a very great degree upon the manner in which the seed is collected and conserved ; 
and we are also convinced that cultivators would be amply compensated for the 
little trouble that might be bestowed in gathering the pods singly at the precise 
period of their maturity, by the great superiority of the flowers produced. To 
establish this position, we need only refer to the seeds (we allude more particularly 
to flower seeds) procured from the shops of seedsmen and others, the smaller and 
more minute kinds of which are frequently more than half of them abortive, so that 
out of a small packet of seeds very few plants are obtained. In almost every case 
where this occurs, it would not be difficult to prove that it is entirely owing to the 
grower desiring to accumulate so great a quantity of seed that he is compelled to 
allow the plants to remain till the greater part of the seed is ripe, and then to pull 
them up entirely, thus losing the first and best seeds, and mingling with the others 
those which are insufficiently matured. The above observations apply to every 
description of plants the seed of which may be desired ; and we shall now briefly 
detail a few of the principal operations which require to be performed in each of 
the particular departments of floriculture during the present month. 
